Bluer and Truer
by Rockstar with a Vendetta
Summary: One-Shot. Thayet never lets any of them get too close, but there's something touching about this particular young man. Co-winner for "Best Heterosexual Pairing" in the 2010 Peculiar Pairings Ficathon.


**Written for Goldenlake's 2010 Peculiar Pairings Ficathon. For those who don't know, Tamora Pierce has mentioned Vania on numerous occasions, so she does exist.**

**Warning for implied sex.**

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Reverence was in those long rough hands as they touched her body, so carefully, so tenderly, his callouses rasping against her own smooth flesh. The adoration in his eyes made them brighter and warmed her all throughout. This was nothing like Jonathan's touch, whose appreciation of her nakedness had long since simmered to an absentminded caress: this man's youth was the very thing that allowed him to love a woman.

"Is this okay?"

None of her lovers had ever asked her that, and Jon hadn't since those first few months as husband and wife, when everything was new for her and he treated her like the last precious water cupped in his hands, afraid she would trickle away to slake the thirst of another.

"Yes," Thayet whispered, reaching out to touch a dark curl, tucking it behind his ear.

That face was so earnest and handsome, and it made her feel old and jaded—unwarranted, because there was only a not-quite-eleven-year difference between them, and it didn't seem so very much. Maybe it was because at almost-seventeen, he still retained the freshness of innocence, while her queenly duties had aged her beyond the twenty-six years she lived. And he blushed when she lightly trailed her fingertips over his hard muscles—how sweet was that? He was not a virgin, but under her ministrations, he acted very inexperienced.

He looked uncomfortable as he gazed around him. She understood his feelings—her private chambers were done in delicate cream and scarlet, pale greens and rosy tints, with prettily carved furniture and graceful sculptures. Domitan loomed large and clumsy in such feminine surroundings.

"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer my rooms?" he offered, even as she fiddled with the ties of his shirt. "It's not so strange for a woman to visit mine, but for a man to visit yours—"

"My guards are trustworthy," Thayet said, shaking her head. The shirt fell open, revealing his hard chest, only slightly tanned. "It's safe here."

She touched his face gently, his whiskers scarping her palm. It was all the encouragement he needed, and Domitan leaned forward eagerly to press his mouth against hers. It was their first solid kiss, the product of many flirting eyes and wistful smiles. Their teeth knocked together for his exuberance and his tongue was much too enthusiastic, but she had had worse in the past. He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, and she felt the strength in it that would allow him to crush her windpipe. Her heart picked up pace and she clutched at his shoulders, squeezing them just enough for her nails to score marks. His other hand reached up to stroke her breast and she sighed.

"Domitan," she murmured against his mouth.

He moved down to her neck. "You can call me Dom, Your Highness."

She could but she would not. Nicknames were for familiarity, and she wasn't keeping him around long enough to get that close.

As his hands moved up her leg and he began to press her insistently down on her bed, she reached over to snuff out the candle, and the light vanished from her chamber.

Nine months later she bore his daughter, though he didn't know it; there was nothing to suggest the baby had anything of him. There was no blue in her eyes, for which she was disappointed—Jonathan's own intense sapphire eyes were beautiful, but Domitan's were bluer and truer. The black hair was Thayet's own, and if it lightened to the darker brown he had, that wasn't so very strange. The only thing she worried about was that nose: the common feature of all descendants of Queenscove. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

Thayet named her Vania, for her own ancestor.

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